Welcome to the first episode of the Wholehearted Business Show! This is going to be a multi platform, multi media show that you can listen to as a podcast, watch as a video and read as a blog.

It just sounded like a really fun way to create content and I’ve decided to go for it so I do hope you enjoy it. 

Each week there’ll be a new episode released and it’s going to be a combination of business tips and advice, answering questions, interviews and more.

One of the things that I’ve noticed in the people who I’ve worked with and the people in my community is that we are multi-passionate creative wholehearted people, wholehearted, humans who want to start and grow a coaching business for lots of different reasons.

We want to have an impact in the world. We want to make a difference. We also want to make money and we also want to kind of create a certain kind of lifestyle as well.

The way that we show up in our business is part of our creative expression. It’s part of who we are. And I think there’s some unique challenges and some really interesting opportunities when you are that way inclined, which is certainly how I am, which is one of the reasons I’m doing the show like this, to be honest!

So I really hope that you enjoy it going forward. I’m really happy to have you here!

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How I approach business – the Seven Keys to a Wholehearted Business

So let’s get into the Seven Keys of a Wholehearted Business. This is how I approach business and I also bring a lot of this into the work that I do with clients as well.

Often the way that we are taught to do business, whether that’s what business gurus suggest or the way society in general suggests we should do things –  my 7 keys kind of go against that a little bit.

Hopefully sharing some of these things will give you ideas for your own business or get you thinking about what your values are. 

Know your version of success

The first value is to know your own version of success.

This is something I bang on about all of the time. I think the reason why this is so important is because when we are not deeply connected to our version of success, it’s so easy to become swayed by what society tells us success is. The overriding culture of the entrepreneurial world is that success has to look like six figures.

If we don’t do that little bit of work  to connect with what our version of success is, it’s really easy to get taken off course, and then to achieve something that ultimately leaves you feeling a bit empty.

It’s super helpful to identify what success really looks like for you. I work with people who’s version of success is the 6 figure business and I work with people who want £30k a year and to be working 10 to 15 hours a week so that they can be flexible around their children.

Both of those versions of success are absolutely valid,  we need to get away from this idea that there is just one version of success and just be able to connect with what success means to you because without that it’s ultimately going to feel empty.

Related post: The problem with the Six Figure Business

Go with the flow of who you are rather than against it

It can be easy to look outside of yourself, at social media, society in general etc and label the way you do things as ‘wrong’. 

But I don’t think that is the case, your natural way of doing things is probably going to be easier for you than trying to fit yourself into a box. 

A big part of how I do business is really trying to tune into my natural way of showing up and just allowing that to come through. I’m naturally a multi-passionate, lots of plates spinning, kind of person and  for such a long time, I labeled that as wrong.

I thought the best way to run a business was to have one signature offer, or to do one key thing. But running my business like that would have been so boring!

I like to express myself creatively through my business and doing lots of different things feels good to me and makes me happy. 

But if I was looking externally I would see a lot of information and a lot of feedback that would tell me that wasn’t the right way to do things.

This is simply about honouring who you are. As long as what you’re doing is working for you, then that’s brilliant!

Embrace your unique magic

I started my online business as a health coach, and for a lot of years, suffered from impostor syndrome. 

I didn’t feel that I looked like a health coach, I wasn’t slim, I wasn’t a bendy yoga person, and I just didn’t feel like I fit the mould of a typical health coach.

But when I really started to embrace who I was and embrace the fact that I was curvy, Northern, a bit sweary, just being who I was basically, that was when people really started to connect with me on a deeper level.

This isn’t about sharing your biggest vulnerabilities. This isn’t even about your magic being the things that you resist or push away. It’s just about you being you and actually showing up as yourself and not pretending to be someone else.

When you’re trying to be someone else, you are doing yourself and the people you serve such a massive disservice, we all have a unique magic and we all have a unique story and I believe, a unique reason why we’re here, and that can’t come through if we’re trying to be something we aren’t.

We all have a unique way of working with people as well and when we can leverage that and really make the most of it that’s when  we can get some incredible results in our business as well. 

Embrace seasonality

The fourth key is to embrace seasonality. Now it’s not just  the physical seasons that we go through, but the fact that we are cyclical beings.

Entrepreneurial  culture is one of hustle, productivity, take take take, scaling our business into infinity and that is simply not the way that most of us are made to show up, especially if  we’re women. 

When we embrace seasonality and embrace the fact that we are going to have times when we want to show up more fully and times when we want to just sit on the sofa watching Netflix then that is a good thing!

If we can just embrace the fact that we’re not going to show up in this constant state and actually have some kindness towards ourselves so we can rest when we need to, have times when we can integrate what we’ve learned and accept these different phases as part of our cyclical nature then that can help us avoid burnout and get better results in business as well.

Enjoy yourself

If we are not enjoying ourselves at least most of the time what are we here for? Many of us will have quit a 9-5 or we will have plans to quit job we aren’t enjoying.

So if we’re starting our own coaching business and not enjoying it then what are we doing it for? 

I also believe that when we’re enjoying ourselves and when we make business decisions in the direction of what we enjoy we’re going to experience a lot of benefits like saving time, increased productivity, and saving energy.

People connect with people who are  enjoying themselves in a much different way too.

This isn’t to say that every single task in business is going to be joy-filled. Some things are hard and sometimes we need to look at the things that we are resistant to and we need to do the mindset work.

However, if we can gear our business up to mostly be doing stuff that we enjoy, we’re going to get more stuff done and we’re going to have a much better time doing it!

Related post: How to find your niche as a multi-passionate

See everything as an experiment

In business it’s very easy to get attached to outcomes and get bogged down in them. Obviously if you’ve got financial needs that your business has to meet it’s natural that you might get attached to certain outcomes like getting clients or to make money, and that’s fine. 

But  when we can bring in the energy of experimentation and seeing things as a test, we can loosen our grip a little bit so we’re not so worried about  the outcome and looking more at the information we get as a result.

When I try a new strategy or a new challenge or when I do a launch I always try and see these things as experiences and then look at the results at the end. There’s no ‘failure’ because I’m always getting useful feedback that I can use to improve my results later.

We have a hypothesis, we try it, we see what the results are. Then we make a decision and we try another experiment, it’s really as simple as that.

I find it such a fun, light energy when you don’t have a massive attachment to a specific outcome.

Have a plan but hold it lightly

I’m a big believer in having a plan in business. If we want to get results and if we want to be making progress in the direction of our version of success then it makes sense to have a plan. With a plan you’re half way there. 

But what we don’t want is a plan that’s so rigid and structured that it leaves no space for a bit of flow and magic.

We need to leave space for play, for being able to follow a new exciting idea, for flow – sometimes the best results in business come from this place.

So when we hold our plans lightly we leave space for more fun, magic, and taking more aligned decisions. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about my Seven Keys to a Wholehearted Business and how I approach business in general.

I’d love to know your thoughts? What’s your version of success? Let me know in the comments below!

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